A patient sat in my consultation room last month, turning slightly in the mirror, and said what I hear more than almost anything else: “I want to look like myself, just a little more balanced.” The best breast augmentation in Marietta GA isn’t about maximizing size.
It is about matching implant volume, shape, and placement to your actual chest wall and tissue so the result reads as your own body. In my Marietta practice, that conversation starts long before we ever talk about a specific implant. The process starts with your goals, not a catalog number.
The women who come to me have usually been researching for a while. They know the vocabulary. What shifts in the room is the moment abstract research collides with a real reflection and a real anatomy. That is where the honest work begins.
Breast Augmentation Candidates and Surgical Goals
The best candidate for breast augmentation is someone in stable health with realistic goals and enough skin quality and tissue to support the implant they want. Breast augmentation is a surgical procedure that adds volume and reshapes the breast using an implant, but the implant only does part of the work. Your existing tissue does the rest.
Skin elasticity is the variable I weigh most heavily. Thin, stretched skin behaves differently under a given weight than firm, elastic tissue, and that difference changes both my implant choice and my placement decision before I ever pick up a sizer.
The decision that catches people off guard: sometimes an implant alone won’t give you the shape you’re picturing. If your nipple sits below the fold of your breast, adding volume without a lift often produces a larger version of the droop, not a rounder, lifted look. In those cases I recommend combining augmentation with a mastopexy. I use VECTRA 3D imaging during planning so you can see the difference between the two paths before you commit to either.
Implant Selection: Width First, Volume Second
Most patients arrive thinking about volume. I think about width first. The base width of an implant has to match your chest wall diameter, and when it doesn’t, the result announces itself: implants that sit too close together, or that extend past the natural breast boundary onto the chest wall. Neither looks right, and neither feels right over time.
Projection is the second measurement that matters. A high-profile implant in a narrow chest can look dramatic in a way the patient did not intend. A moderate profile on a wider chest can disappear. I take physical measurements at every consultation, not because it’s protocol, but because the numbers genuinely change which implant I recommend.
A patient I saw recently had done extensive research and arrived certain she wanted a specific volume. Her body shape put a hard ceiling on that number. We landed about 60cc lower than she expected, and the result was proportional in a way the larger implant would not have been.
Silicone versus saline is a real choice, not a formality. Silicone tends to feel more like natural tissue, which is why I use it often. Saline offers a simpler signal if a leak occurs.
Neither is meaningfully “safer” in the way patients assume. Both are FDA-approved devices with a well-documented safety record. The right choice depends on your tissue coverage and what you value in feel.
Precision Surgical Techniques for Breast Enhancement
Implant placement comes down to your anatomy, and in my practice the choice is usually between dual-plane and fully submuscular. I lean toward a dual-plane approach for many patients because it gives coverage over the upper part of the implant while letting the lower breast drape naturally over the fold. Fully submuscular has its place, particularly for very thin patients who need maximum soft-tissue camouflage, but it can flatten the lower pole if the dissection isn’t precise.
Pocket precision is the part patients can’t see and can’t shop for. The pocket I create dictates where the implant sits, how it moves when you lie down, and whether it stays centered a year later.
Sloppy pocket work shows up eventually. Careful tissue handling, respecting the muscle, controlling every bit of bleeding, protects the long-term result more than the implant brand ever will.
I maintain that any surgeon who prioritizes marketing over medical reality when discussing implant size and cup options without considering chest wall geometry isn’t serving the patient well. The goal is harmony with your frame, not hitting a vanity metric.
Incision Placement and What It Actually Affects
I am going to keep this section short because incision location is genuinely less consequential than most patients expect, and I would rather spend consultation time on placement and sizing than on scar geography.
The inframammary fold incision, placed in the crease beneath the breast, is what I use most often. It gives me direct access to the pocket, heals reliably, and the scar sits in a location that’s naturally concealed.
Periareolar and transaxillary approaches exist and have their advocates. My preference for the fold incision isn’t dogma; it’s what I find gives me the most control over pocket dissection in the widest range of patients.
Breast Augmentation Surgeons in Marietta GA
The best breast augmentation surgeon is one certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, operating in an accredited facility, with a portfolio that matches the look you want. I am board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, which requires six years of surgical training plus written and oral board examinations. My own path was a seven-year integrated plastic surgery residency at the University of Michigan.
Facility accreditation matters as much as the surgeon. I operate in an AAAASF-accredited surgical facility, which sets standards for equipment, staffing, and emergency protocols. You can verify any surgeon’s certification through the ABPS database before you ever book a consultation, and I tell people to do exactly that.
Marietta Plastic Surgery has several board-certified surgeons on staff, so part of your consultation is finding the right fit for your specific goals.
Navigating Your Recovery Timeline
Most patients feel significant chest tightness for the first several days, and that pressure sensation is normal as the muscle accommodates the implant. Augmentation is typically an outpatient procedure, so you go home the same day. The first week you will keep your arms low, avoid reaching overhead, and let the swelling do what swelling does.
Light activity, meaning gentle walking and daily tasks, usually resumes within the first couple of weeks. Strenuous exercise and heavy lifting wait longer, generally around six weeks, because the implant needs time to settle into its pocket before you stress the chest muscles.
The women who heal best are the ones who treat the first six weeks as a project, not a nuisance to rush through. Your final shape keeps refining for months as the implant settles and the swelling fully resolves.
Managing Expectations and Surgical Limitations
Breast augmentation doesn’t fix significant sagging, and pretending otherwise sets a patient up for disappointment. An implant adds volume. It doesn’t lift skin that has lost its elasticity. When the drooping is real, the honest answer is a mastopexy, either alone or combined with an implant depending on how much volume you also want.
Future weight changes and pregnancy will affect your result. Implants stay the same size, but the breast tissue around them doesn’t, so significant weight swings or a pregnancy after surgery can change your shape in ways that may eventually call for revision.
I see too many patients who were promised an implant could correct extreme drooping. Using an implant to tension skin that lacks elasticity is a recipe for bottoming out and future revision, not a beautiful aesthetic outcome. That is poor planning, and I would rather tell you no in consultation than watch you live with it.
What Makes a Result Look Natural
A natural result comes from choosing an implant size proportional to your frame and placing it so the upper breast slopes rather than balls up. The single biggest driver of the “fake” look is an implant too wide or too projected for the chest it sits on. Width is measured against your actual chest dimensions, and when that measurement is respected, even a meaningful size increase can read as natural.
Tissue coverage does the rest. In thinner patients I favor placement and pocket choices that give more soft-tissue drape over the implant edge, because visible rippling or a sharp upper border is what gives augmentation away at a glance.
When the Answer Is Revision, Not a First Augmentation
A portion of the patients I see aren’t coming in for a first augmentation. They had surgery elsewhere, and something isn’t right: the implants have shifted, the pocket has stretched, the size no longer fits the life they’re living.
Revision surgery is more complex than primary augmentation because I am working within a pocket that already has a history. Scar tissue, stretched tissue, and prior dissection planes all factor into what I can and can’t correct in a single procedure.
I want to be honest about revision: not every problem is fully correctable in one operation. Some pocket issues require a staged approach.
Some patients need a lift added to what was originally a straight augmentation. I will tell you plainly in consultation what is realistic, what requires more than one step, and what the limitations are given your specific tissue. That conversation is harder than the first-time augmentation consultation, but it’s the one that actually protects you.
By Dr. Amy Strong, Board-Certified Plastic Surgeon
Board-certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery; an MD/PhD from Tulane with integrated plastic surgery training at the University of Michigan, focused on aesthetic surgery of the face, breast, and body.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if I need a breast lift with augmentation or implants alone?
You likely need a breast lift combined with augmentation if your nipple sits at or below the inframammary fold, the natural crease under your breast. Adding implant volume without a lift in that situation typically produces a larger version of the same drooping contour rather than a rounder, elevated shape. A board-certified plastic surgeon can assess nipple position and skin laxity during consultation, and 3D imaging technology such as VECTRA can show you the projected difference between both surgical paths before you commit.
Does implant base width matter more than volume when choosing a breast implant?
Base width is the measurement a surgeon should determine first, because an implant that does not match your chest wall diameter will visibly extend past the natural breast boundary or push the implants too close together regardless of the volume number. Volume is selected after width and projection are established. Patients who arrive focused on a specific cc target sometimes land 50 to 70cc lower than expected once chest wall geometry is accounted for, and the proportional result is better than the originally requested size would have been.
What is the difference between dual-plane and submuscular breast implant placement?
Dual-plane placement positions the upper portion of the implant beneath the chest muscle while allowing the lower breast tissue to drape naturally over the fold, balancing coverage with a softer lower-pole contour. Fully submuscular placement keeps the entire implant under the muscle, which provides maximum soft-tissue camouflage and is most appropriate for patients with very thin tissue coverage. The right choice depends on your individual anatomy, particularly tissue thickness and skin quality, not on a universal preference.
What actually determines how natural breast implants look and feel long term?
Pocket dissection precision is the primary factor that determines long-term implant position, movement, and appearance, because the surgical pocket controls where the implant sits both upright and when lying down. Careful tissue handling and thorough control of bleeding during pocket creation preserve the result over years in a way that implant brand selection alone does not. Silicone implants tend to feel closer to natural breast tissue than saline implants, which is a separate consideration from placement but also influences the final sensory result.
